GENEALOGY-DNA-L Archives

Archiver > GENEALOGY-DNA > 2006-05 > 1147025994


From: ellen Levy <>
Subject: RE: [DNA] R1b page updated
Date: Sun, 7 May 2006 11:19:54 -0700 (PDT)
In-Reply-To: <000001c671c7$c230da90$4001a8c0@BigMem2>


John:

I will think about your invitation to post my
hypothesis regarding the population of Europe within
the last 10,000 years (actually, perhaps we'd like to
go back further, since 10,000 puts us on the cusp of
the Neolithic, at least in southeastern Europe. Also,
my interest in the topic goes will beyond the British
Isles and is not focuses exclusively or primarily on
that region). I'd prefer to leave the rather large
subject matter of 10,000 years of history primarily
within the paper I am writing. I guess the larger
idea I'd like to convey is not a particular hypothesis
to replace the currently accepted and popular paradigm
of Paleolithic ancestry, but the real problems with
that paradigm based on recent genetic studies,
particularly aDNA studies.

The warning is primarily this: Researchers are
restructuring Y chromosome prehistory based on modern
day population results and presenting such
reconstruction as a factual occurence rather than a
possible scenario. We know that selective pressures,
including natural selection (coupled with drift), may
have impacted mtDNA results over time. How can anyone
be sure, given these results, that similar selective
mechanisms have not influenced Y results as well over
time?

But a lot of this discussion has departed from my
original questions posed to David F. regarding how and
why there is correlation between various R1b
sub-clades and ancient tribal groups like the Belgae
or the Danish Vikings. I think we have certain ideas
about what these groups must have been composed of
genetically (and groups like the Belgae were a
confederation of tribes that must have been quite a
mixture of genetic groups). We are finding from these
DNA studies that our ideas are not always very
accurate. A study on ancient Danish Viking mtDNA
found the presence of haplogroups U7 and I. I is very
rare among Danes today (2%) and U7 is non-existent,
but is common in the Middle East.

I think these studies are destructive to the popular
paradigm of "indigenous" Paleolithic ancestry of
Europeans. My paper discusses this paradigm and why
it has come to replace the previous popular paradigm
of Neolithic ancestry from a few decades ago.

I don't want to get into the discussion again
regarding how the Celtic languages came to the British
Isles and whether it is connected to R1b ( or whether
it arrived with the Celtic R1b1c6s later in time), but
one intriguing thing I have noted about Atkinson &
Gray's linguistic study is that it really does
correlate rather nicely with the movement of
agriculture. Thus, they placed the origin of
Indo-European languages in Anatolia. I don't
necessarily buy into this theory (Mallory's book
argues rather persuasively against a Middle Eastern
homeland for Indo-European), but that doesn't
necessarily destroy the possibility of these languages
moving along with a demic diffusion model of
agriculture. Perhaps if R1b1c6 can be dated earlier
in time as you suggest, the connection between its
movement out of Spain into the British Isles of this
clade could be linked to the Celtic languages as well
(I don't you need a wholesale replacement to occur,
just a dominant group moving in). However, if you
date it too early in time, then the possible link with
language and agricultural movement becomes too
unlikely.

Ellen Coffman





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